Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Teaching Self-Image Stirs Furor

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems.
Please send reports of such problems to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

The most frequently challenged curriculums in public schools across the country no longer involve sex-education programs or classic novels like "Lady Chatterly's Lover," according to a national anti-censorship organization. The new battlegrounds are elementary school self-esteem programs whose imaginary central characters include a blue dragon named Pumsy and a dolphin named Duso.

Local groups, relying in many cases on information distributed by conservative religious organizations, have challenged "Pumsy in Pursuit of Excellence" in at least 35 school districts around the country, said Matt Freeman, a spokesman for People for the American Way.

Uproar over the program, which is used in about 17,000 schools, has also provided a key issue for grass-roots religious organizations seeking to place their candidates on local school boards, Mr. Freeman said.

Opponents of Pumsy and similar self-esteem programs, which in part are anti-drug measures and are thus mandated for districts receiving Federal money, contend that children are being introduced to Eastern religion, the occult, "New Age" spiritualism and relaxation techniques they characterize as hypnosis. Undermining Respect?

"Putting a child in an altered state and suggesting reliance on an inner authority undermines the child's respect for external authorities like parents and teachers," said Dr. George Twente, a psychiatrist from Decatur, Ala., who has written extensively about the programs and spoken out against them.

One of the most challenged programs involves Pumsy, created by Jill Anderson, an author who noticed in her 16 years of teaching in the public schools that children with problems of self-esteem often achieved less than other, equally talented students.

Pumsy is a pre-adolescent storybook dragon who struggles with bullies and Dragonese-language tests. She feels unattractive because she breathes too little fire.

Students are supposed to identify with Pumsy, who learns in the course of her adventures to overcome feelings of confusion and doubt, which she thinks of as "being in her mud mind," by thinking positive thoughts with her "clear mind" and creative thoughts with her "sparkle mind." This metaphor, having three minds for three different clusters of moods or attitudes, was among those that provoked storms of protest from conservative parents.

"They complained that we were teaching children to be schizophrenic," Ms. Anderson said. "So in the new edition we simply added the explicit clarification: of course, Pumsy doesn't have three minds."

She has grudgingly rewritten the curriculum to quiet the demands of conservative Christians, even as she dismisses the merits of their claims. "I have found them by and large to be totally unfounded and reactionary," said Ms. Anderson, who is 50 and is working on a Pumsy sequel about conflict resolution. "But if you can reduce conflict in a community by making a few simple changes, why wouldn't you do that?"

In earlier editions, students repeated Pumsy's mantra, "I am me and I am enough," a reference to a drug-free life. She changed this to "I am me and I am O.K." to avoid what critics saw as a suggestion that children were enough without their teachers, parents or God.

The accusation that children are being hypnotized was leveled by Dr. Twente, who converted to Christianity in 1988. But Dr. Howard Eist, a Chicago psychiatrist who hypnotizes children to treat maladies including emotional disorders to removing warts, said he doubted that the exercises involved hypnosis.

The issue has spread beyond the classroom and into the political arena: conservative organizations have used Pumsy as an issue to get their candidates elected to school boards. In Clay County, a school district in northeastern Florida whose residents describe it as "pure Bible Belt," a battle over Pumsy and a similar program called Duso, for Developing Understanding for Self and Others, succeeded in more than just banning Pumsy from the classroom last year.

Paul Fain, president of the Coalition of Concerned Citizens of Clay County, which was formed three years ago to advocate abstinence-based sex education, boasts that his group has elected five candidates to the seven-member board. Similarities Nationwide

Although Mr. Fain said his group was organized strictly on the local level, it closely resembles others around the country, where parents and conservative members of the clergy have parlayed disputes over curriculums into political organizations with significant local power.

A variety of books, among them "The New Age Masquerade" by Eric Buehrer, include sections on the dangers of self-esteem programs as well as chapters on how to influence a school board.

"Mr. Buehrer's book reads like a blueprint for what happened here," said Polly Partridge, Coordinator of Student Services in Clay County.

Pumsy advocates in Montana, South Carolina and Pennsylvania have collected pamphlets by Citizens for Excellence in Education, a conservative Christian organization run by Robert Simonds in Costa Mesa, Calif. Warning that Pumsy and Duso "are guiding children down occultic pathways under the guise of self-esteem," the pamphlets also outline strategies for building local coalitions and influencing school boards.

Ms. Partridge says her office fields questions from school districts around the country seeking to choose a program that meets Federal guidelines without buying an expensive and time-consuming challenge from a conservative group. "There are just certain phrases and expressions you have to avoid or you will set them off," Ms. Partridge said.

Dr. Twente said last week that he endorsed the Pumsy program after reviewing the editing changes. Ms. Anderson called the changes minor, and said she used one of Dr. Twente's comments on the earlier version to advertise the program now.

"He said on national TV that the problem with Pumsy is that it teaches children to think for themselves," she said. "I'm very proud of that."

A version of this article appears in print on October 13, 1993, on Page B00006 of the National edition with the headline: Teaching Self-Image Stirs Furor. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe